"A decree of expulsion was pronounced by Arsène Lupin yesterday against Holmlock Shears, the English detective. The decree was published at noon and executed on the same day. Shears was landed at Southampton at one o'clock this morning."
CHAPTER VI
THE SECOND ARREST OF ARSÈNE LUPIN
By eight o'clock on Wednesday morning, a dozen pantechnicon vans were blocking the Rue Crevaux from the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne to the Avenue Bougeaud. M. Félix Davey was leaving the flat which he occupied on the fourth floor of No. 8. And, by a sheer coincidence—for the two gentlemen were not acquainted—M. Dubreuil, the expert, who had knocked into one the fifth-floor flat of No. 8 and the fifth-floor flats of the two adjoining houses, had selected the same day on which to send off the collection of furniture and antiques which used to be visited daily by one or other of his many foreign correspondents.
A peculiarity which attracted notice in the neighbourhood, but which was not mentioned until later, was that none of the twelve vans bore the name and address of the firm of removers and that none of the men in charge of them loitered in the wine-shops round about. They worked to such good purpose that all was over by eleven o'clock. Nothing remained but those piles of old papers and rags which are always left behind in the corners of empty rooms.
M. Félix Davey was a young man of smart appearance, dressed in the latest fashion, but carrying a heavily-weighted cane which seemed to indicate unusual muscular strength on the part of its owner. He walked away quietly and sat down on a bench in the cross alley which intersects the Avenue du Bois, opposite the Rue Pergolèse. Beside him sat a young woman, clad in the costume of the lower middle-class and reading her paper, while a child played with its spade in the sand beside her.
Presently, Félix Davey said to the woman, without turning his head:
"Ganimard?"